Party Time by Sam Read

Following Ruth's fab vino I thought I would stay in the party mood!

It's party time for these Stampotique characters! I'm a huge fan of these little people, I like to think they're happy but sometimes I'm not so sure. For those of you who follow my blog you will know I am a massive fan of 'Head' though I have named him Joe, he enjoys lots of adventures and even has some accessories.

For this Happy New Year card Joe is off to a party with Marci and Smile.

I made the glitter ball with silver sequins and silver glitter. I coloured the card with Barn Door and Black Soot Distress Inks.

Whether you are partying tomorrow evening or having a quiet night in I wish you all a very Happy New Year and a crafty 2012!

Lots of love, Sam xxx

Happy (or should that be Merry) New Year by Ruth

"Tis the season to be Jolly...far la la la...."

For a quick New Years Eve gift all you will need is a bottle of vino, or your hosts favourite tipple, brown parcel paper, border punches, stamps, versamark ink, string, shrink plastic and embellishments.

1. Stamp the Catslife Press Happy Holidays stamp onto red card stock.

2. On shrink plastic, stamp with My Minds Eye Christmas stamp or a Catslife Press circle stamp, ensuring you use a Stazon Ink Pad to prevent smudging. Punch a hole in the top and shrink with heat gun, watch the magic begin!!

3. Tie both onto bottle neck with string or Junque Twine.

4. Stamp onto brown parcel paper a suitable Christmas or New Year greeting. Catslife Press and Artistic Outpost are perfect for this.

                             5. Add some simple embellishments.

Your host will be impressed and so will your wallet. (I made 6 bottles for less than the price of one wine carrier bag from a pound shop.)

Wishing you all a happy and prosperous 2012

Ruth x

Shabby Calendar By Paula Tidman

Hoping you all had a great Christmas. Ours wasn't very peaceful as the dog decided to scoff a Thornton's chocolate Santa when we weren't looking (chocolate is poisonous in large quantities for dogs, our dog is small and he consumed a very large amount!) so we had to take him to the Vets on Christmas Day, I won't go into details for the treatment as it wasn't pleasant and I'm sure you can imagine LOL but we returned £130 lighter.

Anyway onto my project as its nearly the end of the year I decided to make a calendar. I recycled some cardboard which I covered in Tim Holtz Vintage shabby paper I die cut the edges, distressed and stamped. For the main image I used the pretty Artistic Outpost Bluebird stamps which I coloured in using new flexmarkers from my stash. The roses were made using some more of the Tim Holtz Vintage shabby paper. I printed the calendar on the computer then used my bind it all to attach it. Some string was added to finish.

Hope you all enjoy the rest of your holidays and here's looking forward to a very crafty New Year.

Merry Christmas Everybody

All of us here at Happy Daze, Moira and the Design Team would like to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas and a gloroius New Year.

Christmas Scrapping By Carol Fox

I don't scrap but I do love some of the papers available. As soon as I saw this set in the shop I just thought how well they would fit onto the little wooden blocks that I am in love with at the moment. I have a pile of these on a wooden chest of draws in my hallway. I add a set each year as it's lovely when I get the decorations out each year to see the older sets and it brings back memories of that year. I have been doing this for about five years now and I am getting quite a pile of them.

For this years set I have used the Pink Paislee sheet , its very good value for these as on the sheet you get 25 images and you only need 24 for a set of four bricks so you have a spare incase you cut of sants's head whilst cutting out.(blushes)
These are a set of 4 bricks which I painted with claudine hellmuth Paints using the crackle technique between the layers. Once dry I roughed up the edges of the cut circles using a paper distresser and then stuck one of each face of each brick using multi medium.

Once dry I aged them up a bit using Old Paper distress ink on an applicator. with out the drying time these took about half an hour to make, so they are a quick and easy project and not too messy if like me you have had a good tidy up of the craft room for Christmas.
I may add a some stickles to them I have not decided yet. But you can jazz these up as much or a little as you wish, they are fun to make and look really effective.

I used
Pink Paislee paper
multi medium
paints
stickles
Blocks
distress ink
paper distresser

Childs Play by Netty Goatley

Hi, this is an Altered Childs Brick which will be used as a Paperweight.

Had recently bought from Happy Daze some Viva Crackling Bronze and Viva Inka Copper and have totally fallen in love with these products.

Thought you might like to see the sides in close up.

 Other products used:Glossy Accents, Black Gesso, The Ultimate Glue and the rest of the items have been recycled.........a 2 pence piece, 4 bottle tops, and the top of a pill box.

Am sure you are all very busy but it would be great to see some of your Christmas pieces here at Happy Daze.  Take care, hugs Annette x

Another Configurations Box by Moira Sutton

This is the other box, made from the lid and half the inner boxes left from the other project. The lid has a clear centre which, if you wanted to use it as a back you could cover with paper or as in this case integrate into the box. I coloured it with alcohol inks as I wanted light to come through from behind where there were gaps between the inner boxes. I was really impressed with how well the box stood up to being painted with Claudine Hellmuth Studio Paints in yellow and green, Cosmic Shimmer mists in and purple violet and a heat gun - no buckling or softening, the board was a rigid as when dry, which is just as well as I did give it a bit of a hammering with the colour!

The theme of the box is Fortune Telling, so the little bits and pieces relate in some way to things used historically in fortune telling or divination. I like that it looks like the shelves of a collector where things are left over time. And there is even space to add more bits and pieces, I'm after white or cream dice and a cup to go with the teapot.

The bottle was a holiday memento from Menorca, you know one of those "local liquors" you buy because you think it will be fun even though it is bright green and has twigs in it. Then one night, years later, your husband says "I fancy a drink what have we got?" and that's all there is so he opens it in hope and after one sip its down the sink! Still it meant I got a nice bottle to play with.